[eli5] How were gerogliphs understood and what was Rosettas stone role in the process.

Question

[eli5] How were gerogliphs understood and what was Rosettas stone role in the process.

In: 2

Answer 1

On the Rosetta Stone was written a decree in the 3 languages spoken in Egypt when it was written – Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Demotic, and Greek. We assumed that the Pharaoh who wrote it wanted it to say the same thing in the 3 languages written. Since we knew one of the languages, we could decode that the text written in hieroglyphs meant the exact same thing as the text written in Greek.